South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford has vetoed a piece of legislation that would grant police the right to perform a warrantless search on anyone who was [then] on probation or parol.
[...]Sanford this week blocked legislation from becoming law that would allow law enforcement to search criminals out on probation and parole without a warrant. He said it erodes personal liberty but provides no guarantee that repeat offenders will change their ways or that the state would become less violent.
I skimmed the comments from readers of the Post and Courier article and was dismayed. How can people so glibly forfeit their Constitutional rights, or more precisely, the rights of others? In this particular case, the Fourth Amendment:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Charleston’s Mayor is quoted in the paper as saying:
“Our communities and law enforcement officers deserve every constitutional tool they can have to make us safer, and for the governor to invoke his personal views on personal liberty in vetoing this legislation is an offense to every law-abiding citizen in the state,” Riley said in a statement. “Legislation like this exists in many states and has been upheld as constitutional by the United States Supreme Court.”
Well, I’m a law-abiding citizen in the state and I’m not in the least bit offended by Governor Sanford’s veto. In point of fact, I applaud his veto… heartily.
Well, it certainly seems that tonight is my night to quote Old Dead White Guys. Thomas Jefferson wisely wrote “Any people that would give up liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety.” The essential and fundamental truth of that simple statement has not changed in the intervening 235 years.
So here is my public Thank You to Governor Sanford, from an average law abiding citizen of the state he serves. An average law abiding citizen who also happens to be from a law enforcement family, as well as a former police officer (way back in my much younger days). Oh, and not inconsequentially: My only child is a currently serving patrol officer in said state.
Sanford may have “invoked his personal views on personal liberty” but he also invoked my own strongly held views… to say nothing of Thomas Jefferson’s.
